Active Topics

What is Joomla?

Joomla is a content management system, so it is not a forum only, but a full PHP stack ready for building and maintaining websites. It won several prizes since it was created, and is clearly one of the Top 10 open source web softwares.

Why reviewing Joomla here?

Joomla is a basically a CMS system, but it could be really more than just this. Its pluggable components are really powerful if you wish to extend the capabilities of your website, and adding a forum software to an existing Joomla installation is nothing but easy. This review is not only based on the Agora component we have chosen, but is more general about what Joomla is able to support, with a plugin, or not.

Joomla is extremely simple and convenient to install. Just follow the wizard and your Joomla instance will be ready in a minute. A classic LAMP architecture is needed, but Joomla could be installed on more exotic platform, like Microsoft IIS + MS SQL or other well known web server, like Lighttpd.

Upload via Classic Attachments.
Images are all at the end of the post.

Use BBCode or HTML.
Need to type the URL of an already hosted image.

Embedded Videos

Videos and Media Websites Supported in Message Posts.

No.

Posting Features

Quick Reply Box

Yes

Smileys

Yes

Attachments

Yes

Syntax Highlighting

Plugin

Message Rating

Yes

Message Quoting

Yes

Joomla Create a topic

Posts features are quite complete, even if it lacks, by default, a spell checker, this is the only thing you'll miss from Joomla. Indeed, the several editors available (by installing additional components, or by default) are very useful depending on your needs: HTML editor only, that provides just helper buttons, plain text, if you need a strong control on user input or, the classic and famous TinyMCE editor, that brings WYSIWYG capabilities to Joomla.

Additional & Technical Features

Additional Forum Features

Poll Creation

Yes

Private Messages

Users Can Communicate using an Internal Messaging System.

Yes

Instant Messaging

Discuss with Visitors and Members in a Chat Window.

Plugin

Calendar

Topic, Member Birthdays, Events are available from the perspective of a calendar.

Plugin

Online Users List

Connected User List (Often Found in the Forum Footer).

Yes

Members List

Search and Consult the List of Members.

Yes

Technical Features

Bundled Software

Additional Software Available with the Forum.

Portal

Website Home Page

CMS

Wiki

Blog

RSS/Atom Syndication

Posts and Threads Exported to Feeds Aggregators .

R

A

Friendly URLs

URLs are clear and contain information about the topic (title, message,...).
Highly recommended for SEO purposes.

Yes

Post by Email

Post Directly From your Email Box.

No

Remote Control

Remote Control from External Software/Websites.

No.

Cache System

Cache pages to optimize bandwidth and load times.

Yes

Template Engine

It is easier to theme a forum using a known template engine (more docs & examples,...).

Custom Template Engine

Joomla Forum Screenshot

Joomla is a really complete CMS... when some additional components are embedded with it. So you'll have to install complementary modules to benefit of additional features, like a calendar. About bundled softwares, the primary goal of Joomla is being a CMS, so publishing a website or a blog is, of course, provided by default by Joomla.

Moderation & Users Management

Pre-ModerationIn pre-moderation, every post needs to be validated by a moderator before being published.

Post-ModerationThe moderation is done afterwards, if an administrator notices a problem or if a member reports something wrong. Each message is therefore directly published.

Reactive ModerationBy reporting any problems, members are reactive against moderation problems.
Moderators' main objective is to regularly check user reports, without having to follow each threads.

Moderator per section

Yes

Global Moderator

Yes

Move Threads

Move Threads from Topics

Yes

Shadow Topics

When a thread is moved, the previous position is kept in order to inform users of this modification.

Yes

Close/Lock Threads

Close/Lock Problematic Threads

Yes

Users Management

User Groups

Organize and define groups of users, and apply different actions and settings on them.
Common Groups: Guests, Members, Moderators, Administrators,...

Yes

User Registration

Free Registration

Registration needs Approval

Invitation Only

User Account created by Administrator

Confirmation sent by email for validation

Limit Features For New Users

Features are limited if a user has created a small number of posts.

No

Guest Posting

Yes

Multiple Administrators

Yes

Send Warnings to Users

Inform users by email or PM that they infringe the board rules, and could be excluded for such behavior.

Plugin

Forum/Section Restricted Access

ACL could be use to determine if a user or a group of users can access (in read only, post message) to some sections
and topics.

Yes

User Banishment

Yes

Administration & Support

Administrating Joomla is really easy and powerful. Its menu-based layout is clear and simple to use. Once your Agora (or other forum components) is installed, directly go to the Components menu, and open the related entry to customize your forum installation.

Database Management

Backup Database

Backup forum datas that you could store somewhere else.

Yes

Prune Database

Remove old and unused datas from your forum.

Yes

Restore Database

Restore a backup of your database if the previous install crashed.

Plugin

Administration Tools

Statistics

Statistics about posts count, users, traffic...

Yes

Error/Notice Log Viewer

Forum Logs could be consulted.

Plugin

Tasks Scheduler

Maintenance tasks are regularly launched and could be scheduled.

Plugin

Mass Mailing

Send an email (newsletters, advertisements, information,...) to all users.

Plugin

Installation & Upgrading

Installation Method

How this forum software could be installed.

Installation Wizard

Upgrading Method

How this forum software could be upgraded.

Upgrade Wizard

Updates Notifications

The Admin Panel informs you when a new version is released.

Yes

Forum Migration

Convert an existing forum to Joomla Forum.

Yes.

It is possible to migrate datas to Joomla, but unfortunately, no other forum softwares are supported yet. More information...

Of course, in the Joomla ecosystem, the most famous forum component, Agora, is able to convert existing forum competitors:

Prevent access to spam robots and other scripts that could attempt
DDOS or Brute Force attacks on your forum.

Yes

Security is really well implemented, and you can rely on the Joomla expertise to support your forum software. Anti-spam features like Captcha pictures and IP blocking are here to prevent your forum to be flooded by third-parties attacks.

Web Accessibility ensures that the forum is usable by people of all abilities and disabilities.

Conformance to AA level.

UTF-8 Support

Default encoding used to support all locales and countries.

Yes

Conformance to W3C Norms

Does Joomla Forum correctly follow (X)HTML and CSS norms?

Yes.

Unique Features

Key points and major differences that make Joomla Forum unique:

CMS coupling

Very powerful administration backoffice

Final Words

Good.

Joomla is, without any doubt, a really good Content Management System. Its ability to support big websites and its configurability makes it a must have in the CMS world, as Drupal. It's therefore not a surprise if, by just adding a additional forum component, that this forum will benefit of all of these advantages.

Of course, it'll require more time and it is a little bit more complex than a simple MyBB installation, but if you plan to not just create a forum, then you have to think straight away about what will support your news, blog,... modules. And of course, the idea of using a CMS is really good, because all your website architecture will be centralized with a robust system (think about user accounts, antispam features,...), that is simply not true if you look at more simple forum software.

About our recommendations, we advice you to use the Agora component, that is one of the most complement Forum component in the Joomla world (even if others are good as well - Kunena). If you are more looking to a classic forum bridge, then we advice you the PhpBB 3 + Mehdi's Phpbb THREE bridge couple.

No offense guys, but from my personal experience, I think the developer of Joomla could have done a beeter job at simplifying things. Why wordpress was developed to be so easy to use while Joomla developers seems like made it for software developers only who know all the stuff! The Joomla forum is also not easy to use. I am sorry!